Tourism contributed over $115 million a day to the Australian economyand outpaced the growth of industries such as agriculture, mining and manufacturing according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

"Tourism GDP grew 3.7 per cent during 2012-13, compared to 2.4 per cent for the economy as a whole. "said Sean Thompson from the ABS,

"International tourism was particularly solid, up 5.7 per cent and showed the strongest growth we've seen since 2006-07. The increase was mostly due to strong growth in the number of international visitors (up 4.9 per cent) - while the average spend in Australia on international trips was largely unchanged on the previous year at approximately $4,300 per trip.

"Despite the continuing record numbers of Australians travelling overseas, Australian tourists' consumption on overseas trips fell slightly in 2012-13, down over $200 per trip from 2011-12 to just over $4,540.

"Domestic tourism, although not quite as strong, was up 3.4 per cent in 2012-13. With household visitors consumption up 4.7 per cent, while consumption by business and government visitors fell by 2.6 per cent.

"Overall, tourism employed 543,600 people throughout Australia last financial year, with employment in the tourism industry growing at nearly double the rate for the economy as a whole (2.1 per cent compared with 1.2 per cent for the whole of the economy). Tourism accounted for 4.7 per cent of total employed persons in 2012-13.
"Tourism also contributed 8.9 per cent of Australia's total export earnings in 2012-13," said Mr Thompson.

Today's release also includes a table presenting tourism hours worked indexes, by tourism related industries, for the first time. The indexes measure changes in the hours worked in tourism from year to year. In 2012-13, tourism hours worked was up by 1.0 per cent from the previous year, compared with a 0.4 per cent increase in hours worked across the whole of the economy.

More information on these topics can be found in the 2012-13 edition of the Tourism Satellite Account (cat. no. 5249.0), available for free download from the ABS website - www.abs.gov.au.

Media Note:

The characteristics of the labour force are such that the tourism industry accounts for a larger share of part-time employees (7.2 per cent) and female workers (5.5 per cent).

When reporting ABS data you must attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.

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